The Socialist Revolutionaries’ Decline and Fall

The defeat of the July 1918 uprising saw the Left Socialist Revolutionaries lose most of their power. By the time of the Sixth All-Russian Congress of Soviets later that year, Left SR delegate numbers would have shrunk from the hundreds present at the Fifth Congress to single digits. The Socialist Revolutionaries as a whole were now a largely spent force, although future exhibits will show that individual SRs would still have a significant historical impact.

In 1922, a major Soviet trial of Socialist Revolutionaries would take place in Moscow. All 12 defendants were sentenced to death, although the sentences were commuted to imprisonment. The trial caused outrage amongst sympathisers outside Russia. This image shows the striking front cover of Dvienadtsat’ smernikov, published at the same time in English as The twelve who are to die (available online here). The book was published by the Foreign Delegation of the SR Party, in Berlin.